A Bridge Too Far: Chris Christie and the Abuse of Power

David Applegate is one of seven children of a farmer’s daughter who survived childhood pneumonia, the Great Depression, the Great Ohio River Flood of 1937, the loss of the family farm, and World War II.His father, the son of a railroader, dropped out of school after the ninth grade, joined the Army to fight the Nazis at the age of fifteen, and was later buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery.David worked his way through high school and college as a seasonal farmworker and laborer before heading off to law school, where he began his legal career by handling employment discrimination cases for the State of Illinois.Today he is a partner in a Chicago law firm, and has been honored by the Judges of the Northern District of Illinois and the Federal Bar Association for his continuing and career-long commitment to handling employment discrimination and prisoner’s rights cases as a volunteer attorney for no fee.

Without regard to whether it’s as bad as Benghazi or more on the order of Obama closing the National Mall in a fit of pique over not reaching a budget deal with Republicans, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s recent embarrassment over his staff fouling up traffic on the George Washington Bridge for four days in September in apparent retaliation against a political opponent is well-deserved.

Whether or not Christie authorized the mischief in question, the action of his aides provides further proof, if any were needed, of the truth of Lord Acton’s famous admonition: Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. In fact, as is often the case, the smaller the stakes, the more petty the politics. Taking their cue from their brusque and combative boss, Christie’s aides obviously let their limited power overwhelm their good judgment, assuming they ever had any.

The arrogant actions of Christie’s aides cost the governor’s constituents unneeded frustration and energy and caused otherwise productive human beings to waste hours of their lives sitting in already stressful traffic conditions. This demonstration of what the late U. S. Senator J. William Fulbright once called “the arrogance of power” tells all we need to know about why more government is bad for us and less government is good: bureaucrats tend to put their own interests ahead of those they are supposed to serve.

To paraphrase Mark Steyn speaking to Hugh Hewitt, if government is good for anything, then it’s supposed to be for stuff like building bridges across rivers to facilitate traffic between states. But shutting down traffic to annoy your political opponents is the stuff of petty tyrants, not a self-governing people.

In the modern world, the only legitimate roles for government are to lead, to follow, or to get out of the way of the people. For four days in September, on the George Washington Bridge, the government of New Jersey showed no apparent interest in any of these things.

A Bridge Too Far: Chris Christie and the Abuse of Power was last modified: January 15th, 2014 by David Applegate